What Raw Means at Buzzberry

Every harvest has a place, a season, and a flavor of its own. This is how we handle our straight honey, what changes when we make specialty honey, and how your bottle's lot code will connect to its story.

What “raw” means here

For our straight honey, raw means that neither Buzzberry nor the beekeeper partners supplying these lots apply heat during extraction or bottling. We do not pasteurize it, ultrafilter it, or blend honey from different apiaries to make every bottle taste alike. We screen out larger pieces of wax and hive material while preserving the honey's natural character. Honey from our own hives and honey from partner apiaries are identified by source and kept in separate lots.

A lot represents a defined pull from one apiary and one harvest window. The same apiary can give us a late-spring lot and an early-summer lot; those are separate lots. A lot code is how we connect a bottle to the records behind it.

Why one bottle may taste different from the next

Bees visit different blooms as the season changes. Forage, weather, location, and harvest timing can shift the color, aroma, texture, and flavor of honey—even when two lots come from the same apiary. When one Wildflower lot sells out, the next apiary's harvest can taste different. We keep that character instead of blending yards for uniformity. Crystallization can occur naturally; it is not, by itself, proof of either purity or processing.

How these honeys are kept by lot

• Wildflower: This year's Wildflower harvests were pulled as separate single-apiary lots. One lot has sold out; the currently selling lot came from the second apiary.
• Tupelo: Our beekeeper partner pulled this honey as a single-apiary lot under our requested handling standard. As of September 22, 2026, the Tupelo lot shipping on Amazon was batch tested using DNA-based floral-source analysis. The next lot has been submitted to the lab; its result is pending. Testing claims follow the lot code on the bottle. Contact us with your lot code for that lot’s status until the public lookup is live.
• Sourwood: Our Sourwood was pulled from one apiary and kept as its own lot. Its short seasonal bloom helps make each harvest distinctive.
• Clover: Our Dakota Honey Company partner pulled the Clover raw and by lot under our requested standard. Clover is partner-sourced; it is not presented as Georgia-harvested honey.

DNA-based floral-source analysis helps us check the floral-source claim for a specific Tupelo lot. A floral-source test does not measure a honey's effect on blood sugar or certify a precise nectar percentage. We share only what the report for that lot supports.

What changes for Bourbon Cask and Hot Honey

Bourbon Cask honey begins with honey kept by source lot. Selected honey rests in previously used American oak bourbon casks, where time and contact with the cask develop its flavor. We describe the honey's original handling and its cask aging as separate parts of the process; the cask-aged product has its own lot and flavor profile.

Hot Honey also begins with honey from an identified lot, then we use low heat during pepper infusion. The finished Hot Honey is a heated specialty product and is not covered by our “never heated” raw-honey statement. Bourbon Cask Hot Honey combines cask character with that low-heat infusion process.